US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Chinese and Hong Kong authorities to immediately release staff members of the anti-Beijing media outlet Stand News who were arrested after a police raid that shut down the publication.
“We call on PRC and Hong Kong authorities to cease targeting Hong Kong’s free and independent media and to immediately release those journalists and media executives who have been unjustly detained and charged,” Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“By silencing independent media, PRC and local authorities undermine Hong Kong’s credibility and viability,” he said.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, however, said on Thursday the raid was aimed at seditious activity not the suppression of the media.
“These actions have nothing to do with so-called suppression of press freedom,” Lam told reporters.
“Journalism is not seditious … but seditious activities could not be condoned under the guise of news reporting.”
Police in Hong Kong, where Beijing has been ramping up control, on Wednesday burst into the offices of Stand News, seizing phones, computers and documents and taking away its editor-in-chief.
Stand News later said it was immediately ceasing operations.
Stand News, set up in 2014 as a non-profit organisation, was the most prominent remaining anti-Beijing publication in Hong Kong after a national security investigation this year led to the closure of jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily tabloid.
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